Thursday, April 17, 2014

Healing Power of Play

"He is waiting to see the day when the side streets are again filled
with the voices of children playing." These are the words of a priest,
in the diocesan bulletin, head of a research center concerned with the
spirituality of the young,

The priest was on a trip
down-country, driving along a side street where about 15 boys and girls
were running every which way, hollering and jumping. He stopped the car
to see what was happening. There was no problem. They were just children
absorbed in playing together. He hadn't seen anything like that since
he was a child. He was overcome with a warm feeling, remembering his own
childhood.

Huizinga,
the scholar, said that we can't
reduce all human activities to the level of work. There is a principle
in all cultures that surpasses work, and this is play. Play, he says,
is an essential part of being human. Children absorbed in play
experience joy. Play is magical, intense, fascinating and captivating.
It
is the way we most naturally express ourselves, expressing our
individuality, our personalities, and revealing our anger, our weakness
and strong points, our
creativity--all are expressed easily when we are involved in play.
Another philosopher said that play
was art.

With this thinking, it is understood that
children and the young should be given the freedom to run and holler in
play. During this time, the adults should not be too closely involved.
This only interferes in the children's play. In play, they express what
they want to do and the way they want to live. This is the way that
life is expressed for them. They become sick, and they are the doctors
who heal themselves. They squabble, have war and peace, win and lose;
life and death are spread out in front of them: life in miniature is
placed before them in play. Play expands their horizon and cultivates
their character. In play, they are fine-tuning themselves and forming a
vision of themselves for the future.

He feels that most young people do not play enough. When they
go outside there are few children they can play with. You go to
the side streets, and everything is deathly quiet. Children also do not
have the time to play in our society. Children who play are generally in good
health; without health they rarely play. Educators seeing the children
playing with enthusiasm can diagnose their psychological situation. St.
Don Bosco not only thought that play was important but was also a means
of healing.

The
priest concludes his article
expressing sadness at the lack of enthusiasm among the children he sees
today, because of the burden of study most of them have to deal with. He
finds joy when
he sees them playing together with passion.

When will the days come, he wonders, when the side streets will again fill with the sounds of the young people playing together?